Movies were only with sound for 5 years when Frank Borzage's underrated After Tomorrow came out. This may be one of my favorite movies I've seen from 1932. Really impressed me.This movie features a standout performance by Josephine Hull, who only made a handful of pictures including Harvey with Jimmy Stewart nearly 20 years later. She's younger in this movie, but still very motherly, and quite an overbearing mother in fact. She plays Mrs. Piper, mother to Peter Piper (Charles Farrell) and says things like, "in every man lurks a beast that can be aroused." Hey, that was pretty steamy stuff to say back then in the pre-code era.
Petey wants to get married to Sidney (Marian Nixon). But they're dirt-poor, and pinching every penny they have left. After all, this is the Depression (set in New York). Mother loves her boy so much that she tries to break up the marriage. Minna Gombell plays a much more verbally abusive mother to Sidney. And soon there is little doubt that the marriage will ever take place, even after a very funny impromptu rehearsal sequence.